"Business Programming" – Critical Factors from Zero to Portable GUI Programming in Four Hours

Teaching programming from scratch in a single semester such that in the end BA students become able to create GUI programs that run on Windows, MacOS, and Linux on their own appears to be impossible at first. However, over the course of twenty years such an endeavor has become successful at the WU Vienna, with 25,000 students one of the largest business administration Universities in Europe. The teaching load for the students is 200 hours (8 ECTS, European Credit Transfer System) of which 60 hours (4 hours per week, 15 weeks a semester) have to be attended in class. One critical success factor thereby is the programming language, another the goals that get defined for each installment of the syllabus, and finally, the pedagogical principles that have to be applied. This submission will give a bird eye’s view of these critical success factors such that they can be reasoned and discussed.